Need help with guitar scale in alternate tuning

[Tab]

I mainly play piano, and am not formally trained in music theory (I wish I was).

Anyway, I'm teaching myself guitar, my focus is the blues, and for a variety of reasons I'm using an alternate tuning - open D minor (DADFAD).

What would be the blues progression in that tuning? I know for chords I'm looking at Dm7, Gm7, and A7, but I'm not sure where those would be on this tuning (perhaps a link to a good conversion website?), and for individual notes in the progression? The fretboard continues to mystify me - I like my piano and blues harp - linear things both, not this weirdo skewed guitar stuff, but I want to master it, dammit.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks

(p.s.: "variety of reasons" is that I often use d minor on piano, plus I'm trying to incorporate slide, which sucks on a standard tuning without fingering ability that I don't possess).

[one_true_leroy]

1. A few thoughts:

Maybe consider DADGAD tuning. Very similar, but FAR more common, so there will be a greater number a resources. Pierre Bensusan is noted for playing almost exclusively in this tuning.

If you're playing slide and just starting out on guitar, look for a partial slide (a smaller version that doesn't cover all the strings at once). You *could* use a full slide, but it may be harder to control for interesting lines. The reason why is that you'll be trying to learn left-hand slide, left-hand fingering, and right-hand picking all at once, and you'll either be sloppy to the point of annoyance (yourself and your audience), or you'll fall into the rut of just sliding all six strings, which is boring. A good partial slide idea is to use a tight-fitting drive socket on your pinky. Just enough to cover the 1st and 2nd strings, and you may be able to find a size that leaves most of your pinky free to flex so that fretting will be easier with the other fingers. With this in place, find the "sweet spots" for each of the chords:

D-7: the first string is open, third, seventh, tenth, twelfth frets, while the second string is open, third, fifth, eighth, and twelfth frets.
A7: the first string is 2nd, 5th, 7th, 11th, and the second string is open, 4th, 7th, 10th, 12th.
G-7: first string is open, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 12th, and the second string is 1st, 5th, 8th, 10th.

Now, playing 'over' the open bass strings, practice hitting these spots for each chord in progression. This is especially cool if you can fingerpick with the thumb playing a steady rhythm. Playing A and D 'under' the D-7 and A7 sweet spots will be very strong and natural sounding, but the D under G-7 will be a little tense, and the A would just confuse the ears. You CAN play the F under the G-7, but this inversion is not very solid-sounding on the guitar. If you tune that F to G, however, you can have a bass thump each of the chords, with D and G under G-7. Especially since, in what I've suggested, I've left that string out, as it complicates things. If you're finger-picking, see if you can get to a point where you alternate the two bass notes under the respective chords. For example, I might play a blues progression with 'four-in-the-floor' bass with the root of the chord picked on each beat for two measures, but then play the fifth (A for D-7, D for G-7) on the last beat of the second measure before changing the chord.

Finally, build a couple bass lines:
in DADGAD (sorry, but I'm abandoning your tuning)
D to G: fourth string open, 2nd, 4th, fifth string open.
A to D: fifth string open, 2nd, 4th, fourth string open.
D to A: sixth string open, 2nd, 4th, 5th, fifth string open. (skip either the 4th or 5th to make a four note walk-up)

All these can be reversed, of course.

Oh, and practice, practice!!

[Tab]

2. I'll try it, but I did start with DADGAD

Then I found open DMinor more in keeping with my other stuff.

Anyway, while waiting for some kind of response (thank you) I decided to make my own chart, starting with DADFAD and mapping out the whole notes at each fret.

Now I need to pick out the blues progressions, but I have the basis for identifying the chords and notes now. It's a bitch to make charts in Microsoft Word sometimes, but some things help.

Thanks

[mitchum]

3. That's what I did years ago when I started using open tunings...

making my own fretboard charts

[one_true_leroy]

4. A lot of it is going to depend on how you play.

As a solo fingerpicker, I like to give my RH thumb variety in the bass-line. A lot of delta-style blues is played over a droning bass. DADGAD gives the root bass-note for the three chords in a D (major or minor) progression without needing to fret anything. This is useful in that it allows the LH to play up the neck over the chord changes instead of hovering around the open position in order to fret the bass notes. All this is irrelevant if you have someone playing bass and all you need to focus on is melody.

In any case, writing out the charts is probably the best exercise for learning the fretboard and tuning.